Preparing the EU for the next disaster

How many systems does the EU have in place that would be activated in a crisis? The answer is about 30, led variously by the European Commission, the secretariat of the Council of Ministers, and the European External Action Service. Their roles vary, from providing early warning, to rapid responses to everything from terrorist threats to natural disasters.

This is a testament to the range of cross-border challenges that the EU faces. It also reflects the growing obligations placed on the EU’s institutions to help member states during crises: the EU adopted a security strategy in 2003, approved a strategy for internal security in 2010, and in 2009 ratified the Lisbon treaty, which enables EU member states to activate a solidarity clause in the event of terrorist attacks and natural disasters.

But this remains an ad hoc system whose flaws have been shown up repeatedly. The chaos wreaked by ash from the Icelandic volcano Eyjafjallajökull in 2010 and, in 2011, the E. coli crisis, the flows of immigrants from north Africa and the cyber-attacks on the EU’s emissions trading system highlighted how fragmented the EU’s crisis-response capacity is. The crises have crossed both geographical and sectoral boundaries.

The Commission has responded; it wants to end the ad hoc system. In October 2010, Kristalina Georgieva, the European commissioner for international co-operation, humanitarian aid and crisis response, proposed the establishment of a European Emergency Response Capacity. In this scheme, member states would pre-commit themselves to providing assets when disasters strike, and draw up joint contingency plans. Cecilia Malmström, the commissioner for home affairs, has emphasised the importance of strengthening the EU’s co-ordination of national resources to manage cyber threats and improve border security. Both sets of proposals are now being implemented.

More pooling and better co-ordination are certainly necessary, and both should ensure that, when EU member states invoke the solidarity clause, the response will be more effective. But only so much improvement is possible if the underlying problem is not addressed: fragmentation. The EU’s response is handicapped by a system in which 27 member states have 27 distinct systems and sets of rules.

National systems need to converge and be better adapted to EU needs in times of crisis. Guidelines serve this purpose.

So the guidelines that the Commission issued in 2010 on risk assessment covering major natural and man-made disasters were welcome. Guidelines already existed for home affairs and internal security. In addition, the Commission has asked member states to draw up national programmes focused on EU internal-security priorities.

But these guidelines and national plans lack follow-through. A third component is needed: political pressure and leadership. The Council and the Commission should jointly evaluate the national plans and, if necessary, issue recommendations to member countries that are not doing enough to meet the EU’s guidelines. These could include deadlines for establishing minimum standards and capacity targets to be reached. In this way, a system of ‘naming and shaming’ (or ‘naming and praising’) would evolve. Such a system of ‘governance by objectives’ has been used in other areas, frequently as a prelude to ‘hard’ co-ordination and legislation.

This work must be cross-sectoral. The EU now urgently needs to decide who should be in charge of this work: Georgieva; Malmström; Catherine Ashton, as the high representative for security and foreign policy; José Manuel Barroso, the president of the European Commission; or Herman Van Rompuy, the president of the European Council?

Overall, the EU should aim to support domestic reforms, build up trust, and remove the obstacles to a more integrated European disaster-response and internal security system. Gradually, national systems would gain common features, a European mind-set would develop, and the capacity to respond to transnational threats would become more robust.

It is not just a desire for effective responses to disasters that is driving efforts to improve the EU’s crisis response. The response to recent crises shows that the public increasingly expects the EU to be able to respond well.

Magnus Ekengren directs the programme for European security research at the Swedish National Defence College in Stockholm.

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